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Scale length longer than ordered?
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: Scale length longer than ordered? (in reply to britguy)
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Britguy,
Definitely send it back, advising of your original order. Deniz may be correct that you received the wrong guitar, in which case it should be exchanged without question. But if it is meant to be your guitar, and it was not made to your specification, Castillo should accept its return graciously and make you a guitar to your specifications. No legitimate luthier will force you to accept something you did not order, and you should have no compunction about returning it.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 9 2012 18:04:09
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Anders Eliasson
Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
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RE: Scale length longer than ordered? (in reply to britguy)
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Your guitar is 2mm longer than what you would normally call a 660 scale. I dont think you can feel it. I think if it was 662 you´d still find it big.
My advice.
Relax and try not to think about strecthes etc, open a good bottle of wine, play a little, drink a little, eat something you like, play a little, drink a little and relax.. If the guitar still feels big, then I would worry, if it feels ok, then you´ll get used to it, if it feels good, open another bottle of wine and play all night long
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Blog: http://news-from-the-workshop.blogspot.com/
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Date Jan. 9 2012 19:59:15
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Shawn Brock
Posts: 271
Joined: Sep. 19 2011
From: Louisville KY
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RE: Scale length longer than ordered? (in reply to britguy)
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Britguy,
I think you are realizing my worse fears. Salvador is high on the 660, and has said that it has greater volume and the base is brought out more. For a solo guy, this seems appealing... Like you though, I'm used to the 650, and when playing solo I tend to play open more than one would when accompanying dance. I have had to live with the fact that as long as I live in Vegas I won't have many opportunities to accompany dance, which is what I would like to do.
I still haven't decided if I will pull the trigger on a 660 guitar. As others have stated, its no big deal if you are using a cejilla, but lots of us soloists play open quite a bit. To me a flamenco guitar always sounds better when capoed, but I hate to do that all of the time.
With as good as my 650 Castillo blanca sounds, I just can't imagine that it would sound better if it was a 660, but it may would...
I had always heard that Salvador didn't speak English, but after this report from Ron, it seems that I have heard or thought wrong. Maybe you should give him a call. I would wait a day or 2, just to see if the guitar grows on you and go from there.
As far as the strings, you probably will be fine with medium tension. I use high tensions on my 650, or high tension bases and medium tension trebles. I'm guessing Salvador strung the guitar with Daddario J46, which may feel a little hard at first with the 660.
Either way you go it will be interesting to hear how it all comes out. After a few days of playing her, the love bug may bight you, and you won't want to give her up for anything. I do think it is somewhat disappointing that you got something that wasn't what it was supposed to be, but I have always heard great things about Salvador's honesty and I would think he would work something out for you if need be.
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Date Jan. 9 2012 23:56:55
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britguy
Posts: 712
Joined: Dec. 26 2010
From: Ontario, Canada
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RE: Scale length longer than ordered? (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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quote:
open a good bottle of wine, play a little, drink a little, eat something you like, play a little, drink a little and relax..
I think we must think very much alike. Because that's exactly what I intend to do: relax, have a glass of wine, and play and play and play.
I really do not want to return the guitar, regardless of the longer scale length.
Like you, I enjoy playing flamenco with a llittle wine as additional accompaniment.
Maybe because we have both spent some time in Spain among the Spanish. Although mine was a long, long time ago. . .
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Fruit farmer, Ontario, Canada
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Date Jan. 10 2012 1:24:39
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Shawn Brock
Posts: 271
Joined: Sep. 19 2011
From: Louisville KY
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RE: Scale length longer than ordered? (in reply to britguy)
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Anders,
Castillo is a pretty good player, although I'm not sure that he sticks with always playing traditional flamenco. Like you I also think it is rather ironic that some makers who don't play much are the first to give advice to a player and tell him how the guitar should feel in his hands... Castillo pushes the 660 and yes, as Orsonw said, he will even bring up a 670.
Lets just go on record now and say that I'm a wimp because I feel more at home with a 650. I'm a little over 6 feet tall and have normal size hands for a person of my size. Long skinny fingers, and thinner hands, but a good reach. The problem for me is I grew up playing steel string acoustics and electrics. In that world the scale length and neck width hardly ever comes up. When I first plunged into the world of classical, it took some time for me to get used to the larger neck profile and the fact that the fret spacing is wider. The only way I could be at home on a 670 guitar is to have at least 20 frets if not more. The 660 also may be a little much for me, I'm not sure. It seems that I would get used to it just like I got used to a 52 MM nut, but I don't know that I would ever love it more than 650.
I can feel the difference in 655 and 650, and can perform on 655, but at some point things will become to much. People have said, "well if you can play a 650 then you can play a 655." Then they will say the same thing about a 660. "Well if you can play 655 then you won't have a problem with 660..." But at some point you run out of comfort in your hands... Lots of classical players are playing these 640 guitars, and they rave about how much better it feels. The 640 just don't work for me... It seems that if a person only played rhythm and never had to worry about picado runs, they wouldn't have to worry as much about the scale length, but if you do much lead work at all without a cejilla, then you can run into problems. Especially if you have any jazz influences in your playing. Your pinky will sure start cramping on those long reaches... These are just my thoughts, and what works for me.
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Date Jan. 10 2012 16:33:46
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Scale length longer than ordered? (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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When I discussed my classical with Abel Garcia at his shop in Paracho, I asked for 655 mm scale and 54 mm nut. His only comment was that he had made an instrument with the same dimensions for Pepe Romero. Garcia plays very little.
The first of Garcia's guitars I played was the spruce/Brazilian he made for his daughter. It was about the size of Torres' small guitars, somewhere in the range of 630-640 mm. It had a great tone and projection, and an especially nice third string.
My first guitar was a cheap one bought in Paracho long ago. It was an entire fret longer than my 655 Ramirez 1a blanca. That amounts to 693.5 mm! I'm tall, with big hands, but I usually tuned that Paracho monster down a half-step and put a capo in the first fret.
I have seen Condes from the 1960s-1970s as long as 672 mm. This was during the time when Jose Ramirez III, dominating the market, effectively refused to sell a classical shorter than 664, though his blancas were still at 655.
The extraordinary (by Euro-American standards) scale length of that first Paracho guitar was actually pretty popular with the rhythm guitar players of the trios romanticos then popular in Mexico. Mexicans still seem to me to prefer longer scales. This, together with Castillo's competent playing, may have something to do with Castillo's recommendations.
Garcia has had a world-wide classical clientele for quite a while. He has associated with European and American classical pros more than Castillo has. Castillo's world-wide flamenco clientele has developed fairly recently, compared to Garcia's classical clientele.
The only other place I played a fair number of guitars on my last trip to Paracho in December, 2006 was at Arturo Huipe's place, off the main drag in his residential compound. I didn't pay much attention to scale length, but the cedar/cocobolo classical I bought from him is a 650. Huipe mentioned that he had sold a number of guitars at the recent Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany.
RNJ
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Date Jan. 10 2012 17:18:19
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kudo
Posts: 2064
Joined: Sep. 3 2009
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RE: Scale length longer than ordered? (in reply to britguy)
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hey britguy, I have a 650 blanca castillo (which was custom order) and a 660 negra castillo (which was already available for sale), so the 660 I have is his typical 660's and I think if I were to measure it like the way YOU MEASURED, i would get 664 .
first, because I trust Castillo so much, I never bothered to "check"and "measure" and I will not be doing it.
from reading the above posts by everyone here, I am pretty sure what you got is a 660.
from my experience so far in playing these 2 guitars, I feel no discomfort in the left hand, except more tension on the 660 (i guess thats normal, considering im using normal tension strings on both guitars), so because of that extra TENSION that i feel, I find the blanca much easier for dance accompaniment. not to mention, that my blanca was designed to be for dance accompaniment to begin with.
I have average hands, there is a particular stretch on open string in alegrias that I can sometimes make on my blanca, and almost never make on my negra.
I almost never play anything on open string on both guitars, except for my recently composed Serrana y Seguiriya. even in this, I feel like I do play my Serrana better on the 660 negra.
at the end, Im sure you will get used to the 660 and I know that Castillo's best negras are with the Granadillo backs. so YOU HAVE AN AWESOME GUITAR!! CONGRATS!! I would like to play a Castillo Granadillo negra some day and compare it with my palo escrito negra!! 
POST PICTURES  !
maybe some day I will visit you in Ontario, I don't live too far away from you anyway.
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Date Jan. 10 2012 20:53:58
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